Ambrose soars, Skaife sinks

It was a contrasting day for two touring car champions at Pukekohe yesterday, when titleholder Marcos Ambrose returned to the top of the V8 standings and former champion Mark Skaife continued his nightmare start to what is fast becoming a disastrous campa

Ambrose soars, Skaife sinks

02 May 2004Michael Lynch

It was a contrasting day for two touring car champions at Pukekohe yesterday, when titleholder Marcos Ambrose returned to the top of the V8 standings and former champion Mark Skaife continued his nightmare start to what is fast becoming a disastrous campaign.

The round winner was Holden star Jason Bright, who took the laurels in his PWR Commodore with two wins and a second place in the three races around the rain-sodden circuit outside Auckland. The round victory -- Bright's first for two years -- lifted him to fifth place in a championship that, because of the tightness of the points allocation, will most likely be won by the season's most consistent driver rather that its fastest.

For Ambrose, an opening-race win coupled with second and third places in the two following 36-lap heats, was good enough to get the Stone Brothers Racing man into second spot in the round and back to the top of the title standings.

New Zealander Greg Murphy made a valiant bid to continue his unbeaten streak at Pukekohe but the Kmart Racing Commodore driver's efforts came up short -- his fourth-, third- and second-place finishes added up to a third place overall and lifted him to third in the championship behind Ambrose and yesterday's fourth-placed driver, Castrol Perkins Racing's consistent Steve Richards.

While those four -- along with fifth-placed Rick Kelly (Murphy's Kmart Racing team-mate) -- are all title chances, a tilt at the championship looks out of the question for the sadly out-of-sorts Skaife, whose horror run continued yesterday. He is not prepared to concede it but, in reality, the season is all but over for him after another disastrous round yesterday.

The Holden Racing Team boss, who has been the dominant driver with five championships in the past 12 years, has gone from hero to almost zero in less than 12 months.

If the five-times champion thought things could only get better after race finishes of seventh, 17th and 22nd in the events contested in Adelaide and Sydney earlier this year -- which had left him 15th in the standings before round three -- he was sadly mistaken.

Although he complained of a lack of engine power pre-race, Skaife did well to qualify on pole. But he was slowly away and lost the drag to the first corner in race one to Ambrose. He was also powerless to resist the start-line surges of Bright and Paul Radisch, and by the end of the first lap he was fourth. Later in the race, things got worse when he tangled with Steve Richards and skidded off onto the grass, dropping several positions as the field thundered by. Eventually he finished race one in 16th position.

Race two was an even sorrier saga for the out-of-luck and out-of-form driver as he was involved in a collision with Craig Baird, which broke his steering and forced his retirement from the contest. In race three he battled to 19th after starting at the rear of the grid. His final-round position was a lowly 22nd.

At the sharp end of the standings, Ambrose continues to fly the flag solo for Ford as the only Falcon driver in the first six in the championship battle. The next best Ford man (his SBR teammate Russell Ingall) is already spotting those in front a big enough lead to make it doubtful that he can mount a serious title challenge. "It could have been a lottery in these conditions so to get through with a good points haul and be top of the championship is great," Ambrose said.

"You can't expect to win every race. We had a great streak last year when we won four rounds in a row but that was a bit of a freak thing. I am happy to be getting good podiums and scoring good points."